On this day: October 31

The first All Hallows' Evening is celebrated, Nevada becomes a state, Harry Houdini dies, Mount Rushmore is completed, and the Vatican apologizes to Galileo, all on this day.

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Public domain

2006: P.W. Botha, South Africa's apartheid-era president, dies of a heart attack at the age of 90 in Wilderness, South Africa. In 1998, South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission found him guilty of defying a summons to appear before the commission to answer questions relating to human rights violations committed under apartheid. He was fined and given a suspended jail sentence.